“Rolling Along” is a female vocal rock song (or a rock instrumental with a female vocal. More on that later...). Peter wrote and recorded the track and played the lead guitar. Mike Eagar was on rhythm guitar, Jeff DeBaun played the bass, and Paul Sheriff played the drums. The vocals were courtesy of Tali Azerad.

Reviewed By: Marty Peters

Rating: 0

Recording: Peter has done a nice job overall with “Rolling Along”. The mix is clean and clear, no nasty artifacts cluttering things up. Tone-wise, things are also in a pretty good place. The Roland V-Drums are fairly well balanced and “acoustic” sounding, while the bass supports the kick nicely.

Sadly, though, after repeated listening, several volume issues begin to wear on the ear. The first is the lead guitar. We’re hearing a bit too much of the old “more me” in the mix as it pertains to the lead guitar. Yeah, we know that in the heat of the moment (flame suit on) it’s hard for many guitarists to contain themselves, but as the producer of the project, it is Peter’s responsibility to make sure that the sum of his parts take precedent over any individual instrument.

Ditto for Tali’s vocal. In our opinion, the two sound sources that occupy the upper frequency ranges of the song sound like they are doing battle with each other. Peter needs to decide if this track is basically an instrumental with an ethereal vocal, or a vocal track with a backing lead guitar. Either way, one of the two needs to give ground in order for the mix to achieve a better balance.

Suggestions: Decisions, decisions. Welcome to the many-hats-club, my friend! We could spend endless hours discussing the virtues of either of the two approaches mentioned above. Given that, we suggest the following: Go back and remix the track twice, once with the guitar in the lead role and then again with the vocal in the dominant position. After you’ve done this, play it for as many folks as you can and garner some opinions. Since it seems that the goal is to present the most commercially viable product, whichever one gets the most votes takes the prize.